DIY Tactile Alphabet Rocks for Multisensory Literacy Learning (with Free Mini-Book!)

All literacy activities are more fun with hands-on materials, but they're also more likely to be effective.  Tactile and kinesthetic learning is a huge part of Orton-Gillingham literacy instruction because it works. We refer to it as making the learning "Cognitively Sticky" -- for more on that, download our free minibook here: FREE MINI BOOK

These rocks are just right for little learners with a phonogram key word, the uppercase letter, and the lower case letter.  They're palm-sized and fit in egg cartons, mud kitchens, and placemats on the kitchen table -- everywhere you'd want to practice your letter recognition, sounds, and early blending and decoding.  

It took a few tries to get these river rocks to come out clear, vibrant, and kid-tolerant, but we have a recipe if you'd like to make your own.  Use quadruple layers of mod-podge to affix pictures to smooth rocks and seal with a spray sealant before you let them get wet or have too much fun with them!

This set includes 26 letters, with all vowels accompanied by short vowel picture cues, as well as three add ons:

• rocks with long vowel picture cues
• the most helpful consonant digraphs (th, ch, sh, wh)
• a magic "e" to turn CVC words into CVC-e words

We'll put this listing up on Etsy if you're looking for literacy manipulatives without the craft project!